The present invention is concerned with improved curtain corner supports, to be used in combination with standard enclosure curtain rods, to support and extend curtains around the open side corners of shower stalls, bathtub shower enclosures, booths, fitting rooms, or medical examining enclosures in order to more effectively seal them. Shower curtains, in particular, are extended across the open sides and corners of shower enclosures to prevent shower spray from escaping the enclosure. To be effective, these curtains must be held against the lateral walls of the enclosure to prevent the spray from escaping around the edges. This invention provides an improvement in accomplishing this. Similarly, in the desire to achieve privacy in the other enclosures mentioned, curtains suspended across the open sides of these enclosures are provided. As in the case of shower enclosures, this invention provides an improved solution to the problem of sealing the edges of these enclosures.
To prevent shower water and spray from escaping the area of a bathtub shower enclosure or shower stall, both often referred to below as a “shower stall” or as a “stall” for short, it is a common practice to suspend a shower curtain downward from hooks that are slidably attached about a shower curtain support rod which spans and bounds the outward opening of a stall from above. Shower areas are formed in various geometric configurations, for example, three walls bounding three sides of a rectangular shower stall or bathtub, or the two walls forming a corner shower stall or bathtub.
A shortcoming of many shower curtain arrangements is that the curtain fails to produce a sufficiently tight barrier or seal against escaping water or water spray where the edge of the curtain meets the stall walls. Because of this failure to sufficiently seal the stall, water escapes the stall area wetting the surrounding floor and walls. This escaping water may cause damage or create unsafe slippery or unsanitary conditions. Removing this water by mopping it up or employing other means is inconvenient, time consuming and is not always completely successful. Various devices and attachments have been proposed to solve this problem with varying degrees of success. In many cases these devices and attachments tend to be both elaborate, complicated, expensive and/or hard to install, thus tending to discourage their use. In some instances, in order to employ certain of these devices, the replacement of the standard shower curtain rods is required, adding to the expense and increasing the difficulty of installation.
Similar problems are encountered in attempting to provide sufficient privacy when using curtained booths, fitting rooms and medical examining enclosures, to mention some common examples. The primary challenge in these cases is to keep the curtain in sufficiently close contact with the lateral side walls of these enclosures so as to provide adequate visual privacy.